Note what Rick said that it is not compatible yet. But it should be shortly.

It depends on your needs. 16 GB is just fine if you have a number of FMPA clients. However, if you plan to have a number of WebDirect connections, it would be deficient. The 10GB ethernet is really nice if your LAN has switches supporting that fast, but probably won't help out many people now. The size of the SSD is really a matter of how big your database is and how many backups you may want on the same drive. Then again, I always prefer backups to go to an external drive and not the same drive as the live data. It's a better best practice. I would go for an i7 processor over the Core i5. It usually is worth the performance difference and doesn't cost much more.

It's a fairly impossible question without knowing the design and nature of your solution and what kind of load you will be putting on it (number of users, # of PSoS sessions, # of server-side schedules, WebD sessions,...)

The decision is largely going to be around whether the processing power is sufficient.

Is there some kind of sheet that helps in figuring what one needs, for example:

No, because the design of the solution is paramount in this, any kind of abstraction would likely cause people to make the wrong decisions. That's why it is important to use the monitoring tools and baseline the solution so that you can extrapolate from the numbers you have.

It's why I am a big proponent of developing against the file hosted on FMS so that you can get some early numbers.

I have this configuration (smaller SSD) and I can confirm that FMS17 runs great on it. Faster than our 6-core Mac Pro in all tests. We have been running this for over a week with no issues.

16GB RAM is a good sweet spot. We are hosting very large tables without running into RAM issues, and that includes a mix of FileMaker and Web Direct users.

Compare to the Pro, data imports went from 900 records/sec to about 1,200. Producing PDFs on the server is much faster. Web Direct really tests the ability for the server to get tons of data and get it to the client, and it's again faster than a similarly configured Pro.

Note that the larger SSD have faster write speeds. From another source, unconfirmed:

Agreed Wim, even more important if purchasing servers with limited hardware upgradeability.

Just for the record and unusually for us, we've purchased a Mac Mini for one of our few LAN based Mac customers: 3.2GHz 6-core Core i7, 16Gb RAM, 256Gb SSD, 1Gb Ethernet for a small workgroup using Macs and iPads connecting over a LAN and internal WiFi as part of an FM v17 upgrade (about to test FMS 17 on Mojave as we don't need webbut may wait for December update).

Spare configured legacy Mac Minis will be in the cupboard for emergencies.

As an addendum, the Mini it is replacing purchased exactly 4 years ago is a 2.5Ghz i5, 8Gb RAM and 1Tb hard disk costing £474. The replacement machine above is £1190! The 7 FileMaker Pro 13, Server and 5 concurrent AVLA licenses were £908 and now would be £2954 (all plus VAT).

There are many variable in play when spec'ing server hardware for FM. Number of connections, resource intensive scripts or processes, network connectivity at the server and client locations, budget, etc. When budget matters, I aim to lower the price-performance ratio.

The new Mac mini's have user serviceable / upgradable RAM. Purchasing the 2018 Mac mini from Apple with 16gb DDR4 is a +$200 premium over base 8gb, whereas upgrading to 16gb of compatible Crucial RAM is only $130. At that point, the difference is relatively small, but you can purchase 32gb of Crucial RAM for $250 over base, whereas 32gb from Apple would be a +$400. This difference is even more significant at the 64gb level.

Same applies to storage. A Thunderbolt-3 compatible external NVME 1TB drive is around $300, vs $600 for the internal 1TB, and depending upon the brand, will have better performance than the internal. That's 2TB of potential storage for the price of the 1TB Apple upgrade.

All that said, this is only a suggestion, not for everyone or every solution. I'd purchase the best CPU available, base level RAM, base level storage, and splurge for the 10Gbit ethernet, upgrade the RAM to desired specs upon arrival, and purchase (2) 1TB NVME Thunderbolt-3 external drives. Put the databases on one drive, and backup to the other. Now there's an insanely fast backup solution in place, for a bit less than stock.

I'm around many sick deployments and many big deployments but I've never seen one that comes even close to saturating a 1Gbit Ethernet connection. Of the 4 potential bottlenecks, network throughput (at the server level) IMHO is the one hit the rarest, by a country mile.

For the vast majority of deployments, 1GbE is sufficient, and will be for the foreseeable future.

I'd personally configure a new Mac mini with 10GbE for specific use cases, such as NFS to SAN, or vSphere clustering for host-to-host transfers - or if colocated in a modern provider, like MacStadium, with the network in place to offer 10GbE connections for the new Mac mini.

Additionally, the low-cost of adding the 10GbE port, $100 over base, vs. comparable TB3 adapters, would become a wise decision in the event 10GbE is encountered, and remains a cost-effective way to future-proof network throughput on the new Mac mini, IMO.

I scratched 1GbE being the 'only potential bottleneck', as CPU utilization, memory, and software are potential bottlenecks well.

And much more frequently so than network throughput, which was my original point. Network throughput (at the server) is last on the list by a very wide margin. CPU and disk i/o are the top two pretty much all the time,

I'd personally configure a new Mac mini with 10GbE for specific use cases, such as NFS to SAN, or vSphere clustering for host-to-host transfers

Got it. None of these roles you'd typically combine with an FMS role on the same box. If you use your FMS box as a SAN unit at the same time and that requires 10Gbyte then I would bet that you'll starve FMS in other areas like processing power and disk i/o.

If you use your FMS box as a SAN unit at the same time and that requires 10Gbyte then I would bet that you'll starve FMS in other areas like processing power and disk i/o.

Right, regarding a FM setup, I intended an external SAN, either as part of a cluster of Mac minis with one or more FMS hosts configured in high-availability, not typical, or for general storage from one or more FMS boxes.